Download Discounts for Mar. 7: 3bot, Hit The Referee, Cogs

The weekend’s over, so console yourself and give your productivity a hit this Monday with three free games to play on your iPhone. 3bot and Gears are both deep yet simple and challenging puzzlers, while Hit the Referee is an Angry Birds-style physics game in which you need to punish a soccer ref for ruining […]

The weekend’s over, so console yourself and give your productivity a hit this Monday with three free games to play on your iPhone. 3bot and Gears are both deep yet simple and challenging puzzlers, while Hit the Referee is an Angry Birds-style physics game in which you need to punish a soccer ref for ruining everybody’s day. Read about all three below in today’s Download Discounts.

3bot (iPhone, iPad) Free (was $2.99)

The concept of 3bot is deceptively simple. Your spider-legged robot lands on a three-dimensional object, and it’s your job to move him across each face of that object in order to change it to a different color. The trick is to move from tile to tile without returning, as fast as you can; doing the job in few moves and quickly earns you a high score.

3bot packs a cool retro sci-fi art style to go with its OpenFeint support for achievements and leaderboards. It’s a challenging game that’s easy to pick up and learn, and only uses a single tap control to play. There are 45 puzzle levels to work through, which will keep you busy for a bit.

Hit The Referee (iPhone, iPad) Free (was $0.99)

What this Angry Birds-like physics puzzler might lack in polish, it makes up for in puzzles that require some finesse to complete with a good score. It’s your job to hit the soccer referee with a ball by kicking it over obstacles and to other teammates, with the goal to make the hit on the annoying ref as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Some of the mechanics in Hit The Ref are pretty standard Angry Birds-like fare, like breaking objects with your ammunition, but a few are a little more inventive. The passing is a cool idea, and there are also switches and other objects to interact with as you quest to peg each ref with a soccer ball and teach him a lesson (presumably).

Cogs (iPhone, iPad) Free (was $0.99)

You get two kinds of puzzlers in one with Cogs, which easily bridges the gap between 2D and 3D environments to challenge you with its series of slide puzzles. Like puzzles you’ve probably solved in which you move tiles around to form a picture, Cogs requires players to rearrange tiles with gears on them in order to make a chain from one side of a puzzle to the other, in order to power something at the far end.

Cogs is split into three game modes: Inventor mode, in which you move through different levels, trying to solve puzzles as quickly as possible, and two challenge modes. In Time Challenge mode, puzzles you’ve completed get unlocked and tweaked, giving you just 30 seconds to find the solution. In Move Challenge mode, you only get 10 moves to complete each puzzle. Support from Crystal gives you access to leaderboards and achievements to go with your puzzle-solving.

Phil Hornshaw is a freelance writer, editor and author living in Los Angeles, dividing his time between playing video games, playing video games on his cell phone, and writing about playing video games. He’s also the co-author of So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Time Travel, which attempts to mix time travel pop culture with some semblance of science, as well as tips on the appropriate means of riding dinosaurs. Check out his Google+ profile.